When our leadership team embarked on a five-year journey to improve reading across our rural primary school in Lincolnshire, we knew there were opportunities to support this through EEF trials. But we had a few questions before signing up. What would we gain? Would there be any challenges or risks? How might being part of a trial impact our whole-school approach?
Our strategic intent focused on improving whole class teaching, as well as the interventions we offer to support our learners, often our most socio-economically disadvantaged children. We’ve taken part in several EEF trials that have aligned with this intent, including Reciprocal Reading, Lexia Reading, Abracadabra and NELI Pre-school.
We knew that we might not be assigned to the intervention group but, we were happy to contribute to the evidence-base as part of the control group, knowing we would benefit from it.
How did we select which EEF trials to be part of?
First and foremost, we had a need as a school to support our most disadvantaged students. Alongside this, we considered the financial commitment and existing evidence around programmes.
For example, we knew that the evidence around Lexia Reading appeared strong and we’d heard from trusted colleagues at other schools of its potential benefits. But, as a small school, we were very wary of the financial commitment for this programme. Being part of an EEF trial allowed us to explore the feasibility of implementing this intervention at a low cost.
We took care to implement the programme with fidelity and began to see the impact in our school data. This was reflected in the trial results; the programme data yielded a high security rating, meaning we felt confident in the financial outlay when deciding to continue implementing Lexia Reading beyond the trial itself.
A strategic approach
Having a balanced diet of interventions was important to us. Lexia Reading differed from Abracadabra in that it was a tech-based intervention that aimed to improve reading skills in Year 1. Abracadabra, on the other hand, was implemented by our teaching assistants. They received first-rate training to support Year 2 learners through the transition of decoding into fluent reading for comprehension. This approach enabled them to embrace the delivery of the intervention. We want to make sure that training and expertise is distributed across our staff, so this is another factor that feeds into our decision-making around EEF trials.
What did we find?
For our school, taking part in EEF trials has dovetailed with our own strategy and helped address gaps in our provision. The training provided us with an opportunity to experience practice we might otherwise not invest in, as a small school. This might be equally true for larger schools with on-going budget constraints. This strategy has certainly reaped rewards for us, and our reading results are consistently – and significantly – above national average; many programmes we first experienced through EEF trials are now embedded as core elements of our reading infrastructure.
If you are considering being part of an EEF trial it is always worth entering into it with your eyes open. The approach may not have desired effect at scale; you may be part of the control group (although from our moral compass, there is reward here for contributing towards the evidence-base).
However, the overall impact on the quality of teaching and learning and, ultimately, student outcomes, has been enhanced by our policy of signing up for EEF programmes. We continue to look at opportunities to engage with EEF trials. Most recently, we’ve signed up for another programme next year with a focus on mathematical reasoning (Mathematical Reasoning (trial) | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk). This fits nicely with our current work on problem solving in maths and we’re excited to take part!